The American Dirt Project

A website devoted to the creation of a soft surface Trans-USA Mt. Bike route

In the spring of 2015 we began the American Dirt Project along the Atlantic Ocean in Lewes, DE; three months later we ended up in Western Utah, one hundred miles from the UT-NV border. I had run out of time in my effort to complete the the first soft surface mountain biking trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. We’d spent three months working our way across America with me ending up a thousand miles short of our goal. We heading back in May of 2016 to finish this endeavor, where I made progress from Western Utah into Central Nevada until a heart attack kind of got in my way. I rehabed for a year then went back with my good friend Dave Jolin this past June 2017 to finish the remainder of the route, Central Nevada through Northern California to the Pacific Coast in Mendocino. We did it. And all across those three years, Judy provided me with vital support to make this dream a reality. For a more detailed discussion of the trip go to “The Story” page, and for a day-by-day chronicle of the trip go to my blog page the full 3-year endeavor.

What I’d like to do hence forward, now that I've completed the trek, is use this website to gather information such that WE, the Mountain Biking community, can pool our knowledge and really fine-tune what I’ve put together over the last seven years of research. My hope is to take this general route and turn it into a bonafide X-country course that is totally legal. To eliminate all the water, berm and illegal paths that I had to utilize in 2015 is going to be a massive undertaking that I just don’t have the capacity to do alone.

With that being said, I'm actually going to put the whole route up as Ride With GPS maps for each state. I’m going to credit the people whose routes I’ve cobbled together with my routes in the making of American Dirt, and I’m going to highlight the areas that need to be “cleaned” up in order to make the route viable. I’m hoping I can spark an interest in the local mountain bikers who reside in these numerous “clean-up” areas to explore other possibilities in order to make American Dirt something that will stand as a true mountain biking route across America. Thanks to everyone for your support.